Drop Dead Divas, page 28
“Aren’t I? While you two were chasing shadows, I took the flashlight and went back to the dining room. It took a minute to get it off the floor without tearing it, but I think I got it all. I’m really good at this kind of thing.”
“And so modest, too,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes.
“Just for that—here, Rayna. You can read it first. Your flashlight still works, right?”
Bitty held the flashlight while Rayna read what she could of the still wet paper. I could tell from her face that it didn’t live up to our expectations.
“Damn,” she said with a disgusted sigh. “It’s a copy of next week’s column, all right, but so much of it is wet . . . wait. I know what we can do. Let’s take this back to my house. I’ve watched enough Forensic Files to figure out how they dry things and use light to get it to come up better. Maybe I can improvise.”
“We are mistresses of improvisation,” I said hopefully.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” said Rayna. “On TV they use sophisticated equipment that I don’t have. And this is laser jet, so it may not come out right. But we can give it a try.”
We all trooped over to Rayna's house for our experiment in forensic technology. If it had been something involving duct tape and a fingernail file, I’d have been very helpful. Since it probably involved chemicals and know-how, I would just watch.
When we got there, Rayna's husband Rob was home. She thought it best not to tell him that A: we’d been carted off to jail in a squad car again, or B: what it was we were attempting to do. Not that she’d lie to him if he asked, of course. But unless he asked specifically if we’d been at the jail or had taken evidence from a police-sealed crime scene, there would be time enough later to confess all.
“Hello, ladies,” the unsuspecting Rob greeted us cheerfully. “And how is your evening going?”
“Just fine,” Bitty lied. “Except we’re all thirsty. I don’t suppose you have any wine?”
“Ah,” said Rob with an eager gleam in his eyes. “Come to the wine cellar and see my latest purchase. It just came in yesterday. An entire case of Beaujolais from California. A new vineyard I wanted to try.”
“Delighted,” Bitty said promptly, and as she followed Rob from the hotel lobby to the kitchen and cellar door, gave us a wink over her shoulder.
“Clever girl,” said Rayna. “Rob’s out of the way for at least a half hour. She’ll keep him down there talking about wine, while we see what we can do with the paper.”
“I didn’t know Rob was into wine.”
“It’s something new. Always something new with him. He’s expanding his horizons, he told me. In fact—he’s thinking about hiring someone to help him with the insurance investigations he does. That way, when he has to be out investigating fraud, there will be another person to help out here.”
“Why don’t you write bonds for him? That way you can keep the money in the family.”
“Not me. I’m not getting out at two in the morning to bail some drunk out of jail. I like my sleep. Besides, I have my artwork that I prefer. It pays me enough to buy more paints and canvases.”
And then some. Rayna has an excellent eye and produces beautiful work. She sold most of it, but still has a few pieces hanging on her walls. I love the colors she uses. Bright greens, reds, yellows and blues, and usually a cat peeking out somewhere in the paintings she keeps.
The infamous Merlin of Chen Ling and mouse-racing fame, curled around her ankles when she went into the kitchen. He’s a fat, lovely cat. He’s also insistent and a bit spoiled. When his meowing got too loud, Rayna opened a jar of cat treats and gave him a handful. This had the immediate effect of causing several more cats to miraculously appear in the kitchen.
“If you’ll keep the cats off the counters,” Rayna said, “I’ll see what I can do with a light bulb. And some vodka.”
“Kinky,” I said as I took the jar of cat treats she handed me. “How many cats do I feed?”
“All of them. Just scatter treats on the floor, and they’ll take care of the rest.”
While I fed the motley assortment of felines, Rayna got to work using a lamp with a bare light bulb. I’m not exactly sure what treatment she gave the paper, but she heated it over the hot bulb until she got the results she wanted.
“Eureka,” she said calmly. “We have a few more sentences here. Okay. Here’s what it says as far as I can tell: ‘What cool blond in our town square had more than a tiny bit of involvement with one of Holly Springs’ recently deceased citizens? Readers, I can tell you that law enforcement officials are asking the same questions. Too bad they don’t have the same sources I do, because—’ and part of that sentence didn’t come out, but it picks up here: ‘so you will soon know the rest, dear readers. Don’t forget, you heard it here first.’ There’s other stuff in her column, but this is the only part that refers to the murders. So, what do you think?”
“Rose Allgood is definitely a suspect. But that leads to the question—who was the guy who attacked us tonight?”
“I’m not sure it was a guy.” Rayna opened a cabinet and got out a tumbler. Then she poured a small bit of vodka into it and offered it to me. I shook my head. Straight vodka, even real expensive vodka, is not my thing.
“You think it might be a woman who was in Miranda's house tonight?”
After downing the vodka, she coughed. “That’s powerful. Anyway, it may have been. Whoever it was, she’s a strong woman if she’s not a he. You know what I mean.”
I did. I thought about Rose Allgood. She was tall, blond, and could be athletic; it was possible. I squinched up my eyes and tried to visualize her, but all I could remember were the shelves of dildos and her cool stare. Everything else was vague.
“Has it occurred to you that Miranda Watson could be wrong?” I asked after I was out of cat treats and Rayna poured herself another smidgen of vodka. One of the cats got a little aggressive about the lack of more treats, and Rayna shooed it away.
“Constantly. She always thinks she’s right, but there have been times when she’s wrong.”
“Then she could be wrong, now.”
“Yep. But I wonder . . .”
“What?”
“Let’s sit down and go over everything we know, and what we think we know. It may make more sense on paper.”
It seemed like a good idea to me.
We were still on the first fact, Race’s murder, when Bitty joined us. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “He already knows,” she said to Rayna. “He’s decided to sample his wine for a while before he asks you why you have your head up your ass.” She held up a hand. “His words, not mine. I say let him sample quite a while before you talk to him about us going to the Watson house tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rayna said after a heartbeat of silence. “Okay, we’re making out a list of what we know, what we don’t know, and what we need to know. Or really, just putting down things in chronological order.”
Bitty looked mildly interested. “I take it the column holds no great revelations.”
“Just what we already know from Gaynelle. Now we have to figure out if it’s true and if so, how do we prove it.”
“Did Gaynelle say how she found out?”
We all looked at each other. Rayna reached for her cordless phone and dialed a number.
“Gaynelle? This is Rayna—yes, I know it’s late. No, no one else has been hurt. It is important. Now listen. How did you find out Rose Allgood is under suspicion? Uh huh. Uh huh. I see. Okay, thanks. Go back to sleep. Yes, but I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. It can wait. G’nite.”
“Well?” demanded Bitty when Rayna thumbed the phone’s off button and shook her head at us. “What’d she say?”
“She said she heard it from Miranda Watson.”
“Oh great,” I said. “It all leads back to her. So if she’s wrong, then—”
“Then we wasted time and energy tonight,” Rayna finished. “Well, let’s not waste any more time. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
We listed Race on one notebook page, Naomi on the flip side, then what we knew related to each under their names. It ended up being a pretty long list, longer than any of us had expected, I was sure.
“Okay,” said Rayna, skimming the list under Race’s name, “we have Race found dead in Trina and Trisha Madewell’s rental cottage. Trina and Trisha both dated him. Trina was once engaged to him. He ended the engagement. Trina has motive. She has opportunity. But it was Naomi’s pistol that killed him. Both sisters knew Naomi.
“That brings us to Naomi. She had opportunity and method, but what would have been her motive? She was in love with him by all accounts and expected to marry him.
“So now we go back to Trisha. She had opportunity, but no real motive that I can see, and again, it was Naomi’s gun.”
Pausing, Rayna looked up at us. “So far so good?”
We nodded affirmation. Rayna can be quite organized in her thinking, which I always thought right brain people couldn’t manage. I must be a middle brain person, since I have no creativity and greatly flawed logic.
Continuing, Rayna ticked off the next person on the list, bringing a protest from the suspect herself.
“Hey,” Bitty said, “my name shouldn’t be on there!”
“I explained to you a little while ago that if we’re going to list all possible suspects we have to list everyone connected to both the victims, Bitty.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you meant me!”
I patted Bitty’s arm. “It’s okay, honey. Just hear her out.”
“As I was saying,” Rayna continued, “Bitty dated Race once. While she didn’t want to see him again, she had no motive, no opportunity, and no access to Naomi’s gun.
“Then we have Cliff Wages, who allegedly sabotaged Race’s hot rod. His only motive seems to be greed, although with Race out of the way, he moved up in the NHRA ranks. That might be enough reason to kill, even though it wasn’t like Race was that much of a threat to him anymore. Race needed a new sponsor and money to get back into the game. There’s no evidence Wages ever met Naomi, though it’s possible. I think we can safely rule out Wages.
“That brings us to Rose Allgood. She has money. If it’s true that Race jilted her, that would give her motive. No opportunity, no access to Naomi’s gun, however. As far as we know, she didn’t know Naomi, though it’s possible they met since Naomi did go to Carolann’s shop pretty often.
“Now, we turn to Naomi’s murder. Despite Bitty’s suggestion that we include half the high school football team—” She flashed a wry smile up at my dear cousin. “—we’ve narrowed it down to three suspects.
“One, of course, is Bitty. We’ve established that she had plenty of motive, but it’s doubtful she had opportunity.”
“Doubtful?” Bitty repeated indignantly. “Don’t you mean impossible?”
“I’m approaching this objectively, Bitty. Don’t take anything personal. I’m just asking questions the police may—and probably have—asked themselves.”
“My phone records show I was on the phone organizing our meeting when she was killed. So I’ve been cleared.”
“There are records that your phone was in use, not that you were the one on it,” Rayna corrected, then added, “but I don’t think the police believe you’re the one who killed Naomi, or you’d already be in jail.”
Somewhat pacified, Bitty sat back in the kitchen chair with her arms crossed over her chest. “Oh, we all know that Trina Madewell killed them both.”
“It does look that way,” Rayna said with a frown, “but if that’s true, why drag in Rose Allgood’s name?”
“Trina and Miranda obviously had conversations, or that nasty column about the Divas wouldn’t have been published,” I said. “Maybe Trina told Miranda about Rose just to throw the police off the track.”
“But if Miranda went to the police—and remember, she said she didn’t—they would have already brought Rose in for questioning, wouldn’t they?” Rayna pointed out.
“We have only Miranda's version of that. What if Miranda is the common link in both murders?” I asked.
“Nonsense,” said Bitty. “It’s Trina. Or Trisha. Most likely Trina is the murderer.”
“I didn’t mean Miranda is the killer, Bitty. She’s just the vehicle the killer is using to spread false information. If not, she wouldn’t have been attacked. Maybe the killer thought she’d put together the pieces and intended to go to the police.”
“All conjecture,” said Rob from the doorway. He carried a bottle of wine and an empty glass. “Let the police handle this. If tonight wasn’t reason enough, remember being run off the road.”
“Hard to forget,” I said. “That’s one reason we’re so determined to get the guilty person. They’ve killed twice, and tried to kill four other people, including Miranda.”
“Reason enough for you three to stay the hell out of it,” said Rob flatly. He put the wine and glass on the kitchen counter, then pulled out a chair and sat at the table next to Rayna. “Believe me, the police are more than capable of solving these murders.”
“Before or after someone else gets killed?” Rayna reached across the table and put her hand over Rob’s. “Police have legal procedures they have to follow. We don’t. We can go places and talk to people who might actually say things they wouldn’t say to the cops. You know that.”
“I know the police have guns and pepper spray, and none of you do.”
“Oh, I do,” Bitty said brightly. “I have a gun and pepper spray.”
Rob rolled his eyes. “That’s not as comforting to me as you might think.”
“I can shoot. Ask Rayna. I shot up the truck that was chasing us. Maybe I didn’t hit the driver, but I did damage. If we could find the truck, I bet we’d find the killer. Let’s look out at the Madewell place. They probably have it hidden in a barn or something.”
“Hm,” said Rob thoughtfully. “Bitty, you just gave me an idea.”
“A good idea?”
He grinned. “I hope so. If I do some investigating, will you three promise me you won’t go snooping around anywhere?”
“Are you any good?” Bitty asked seriously.
This time I was the one who rolled my eyes. “Bitty, it’s what he does for a living. He investigates insurance fraud.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. I just usually see him as my bail bondsman.”
“For which I thank you,” said Rob. “Lately, you’ve been keeping my bank balance healthy. As nice as that is, I’d like to put an end to your budding career.”
“Career? I don’t really have a career. Although I have been thinking about going back into real estate. Why would you want to stop me?”
“He’s talking about our amateur detective work, Bitty,” I said. “Rob is telling us that he’ll try to find the black truck for us. If it’s at Madewell Courts, as an insurance investigator, he can ‘check out a recent claim’ so to speak. That gives him a legitimate excuse to go snooping in barns. Am I right, Rob?”
“Right on the nose, Trinket. What do you say, ladies? You retire and let me do the detective work for you?”
“You’ll tell us what you find?” Rayna asked.
“As long as you agree that I’m going to tell the police first.”
“But then they get all the credit!” Bitty protested.
“Don’t mind Bitty,” I said. “She’s still getting marriage proposals from around the world after all that publicity we got last time. If it wasn’t for Jackson Lee, I think she might have accepted the invitation she got from the Shah of Iran.”
Bitty glared at me. “You know that guy was really in a Texas prison and not the Shah at all.”
I made a face at her. “I’m shocked to hear that.”
“Yes,” Rayna said, “we all agree that anything you find has to be given to the police first. We would like to be kept in the loop, though. Will you do that much for us?”
Rob leaned over and kissed his wife. “Absolutely. As long as I know you’re safe, I will share everything I get.”
It was the best deal we could have gotten, I suppose, and really, I wasn’t that fond of poking into abandoned buildings after everything that happened a few months ago.
“Want our lists?” I asked Rob, and he reached for the notebook on the table. After looking it over, he nodded.
“Impressive. Your conclusion that the two murders are connected is logical. I’ll check out Rose Allgood’s past, money trail, anything like that, just to be sure. I have a new software program that can track almost anyone anywhere.”
Rayna gave him an exasperated look. “Well, why didn’t you tell me this earlier? I could have used it.”
He wagged a finger at her. “Hunh uh. I didn’t want you getting into any more trouble than you already have. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.”
Rayna's eyes narrowed. “I think I want to redo our bargain.”
“Nope,” he said. “We already have an agreement. You keep your end of the deal, and I’ll keep mine.”
Whistling a cheery tune, he got up from the table. We watched silently until he’d left the kitchen. Then we looked at each other.
“We made a bargain,” I reminded. “Let’s just see what he comes up with, okay?”
“Fine by me,” said Bitty. “I wonder if it’s too late to call DJ. I really need to get my thumbnail fixed.”
“It’s after midnight,” said Rayna. “I move we adjourn this meeting of the mentally impaired.”
“Seconded,” I said.
“Huh?” said Bitty.
I took her arm. “Let’s go home. I’ll explain on the way.”
****
It was an exhausting end to what had started out as a relaxing day. I was amazed we’d packed so much activity into just a few hours. I stopped my car in front of Bitty’s house and left the engine running. She looked over at me.
“You’re not coming in for a nightcap?”
“I’m too tired. One drink would send me into a coma.”
Bitty nodded. In the light that came from her front porch, I could see her frown. “I keep thinking about Miranda being in a coma, and the intruder at her house tonight. It seems like the same person who attacked her, doesn’t it?”
